Sears, like a lot of distressed retailers, needed a good holiday season. It did not have one.
The early figures for Q4 show a slide in comparable sales mirroring its third quarter, when comps fell a precipitous 15%, contributing to a total sales fall-off of 26% to $3.7 billion.
So far 2018 is looking a lot like 2017, with Sears closing stores and making incremental moves to shore up its finances and stave off bankruptcy. Meanwhile, its sales base continues to decline at an alarming rate. The company has pledged to return to profitability in 2018 — and it did indeed make significant progress in reducing its losses for much of 2017. But it’s still losing money, and borrowing heavily.
